BOSTON (AP) - The death of a college student from a pepper-spray-filled projectile sparked anger and questions Friday about whether police used too much force to break up rowdy Red Sox revelers outside Fenway Park.

The mayor said more police will be at neighborhood bars during the upcoming World Series to make sure fans do not get too drunk or rowdy, but he backed off his threat to ban alcohol in the area during the games.

Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole said police are considering discontinuing the use of the weaponry that killed Victoria Snelgrove as officers tried to contain an estimated 80,000 fans who poured into the area after the Red Sox victory Wednesday at Yankee Stadium in New York.

O'Toole said the officers showed "great restraint" but had to fire the projectiles after a few revelers set small fires and threw bottles at police and vandalized property, endangering others. Snelgrove, a 21-year-old Emerson College student, was hit in the eye and died hours later.

The plastic balls of pepper spray, which are propelled from devices similar to paintball guns, are meant to help police control large groups without injuring people.

"We want to use the least force necessary in order to maintain the crowd," O'Toole said. "Very unfortunately, it resulted in a horrible action."

Mayor Thomas Menino decided against invoking a rarely used state law to ban the sale of alcohol "in cases of riot or great public excitement" after meeting with about two dozen bar and restaurant owners Friday.

Instead, the city and bar owners agreed to limit the number of people lining up to enter Fenway-area clubs and to prevent live television coverage inside the bars so patrons do not get rowdy as they play to the cameras.

Several people who were near the area where Snelgrove was shot said the crowd seemed under control when the pepper-spray balls were fired.

Doug Conroy, 33, of Portland, Maine, said he and several other people had climbed the rafters of Fenway's famed Green Monster when police began to order them back down. He said he saw an officer in riot gear shoot something into the crowd below him.

He said he heard a woman scream, then heard sobbing. "A lot of people then looked over and saw her lying awkwardly on the sidewalk and blood coming out of her nose. She wasn't moving and we were just hoping she was just unconscious," Conroy said.

He called the police action "an egregious overreaction."

"There was nothing violent going on. It was all celebration," he said.

Boston police bought the projectile weaponry for crowd control during this summer's Democratic National Convention, but did not use it then because protests remained relatively subdued.

Melvin L. Tucker, a security consultant who specializes in the use of force by police, said "less-than-lethal" weaponry has become an increasingly popular among police departments around the country over the past five years as a replacement for tactics such as nightsticks and tear gas.

"This is generally a lot safer. It's a real tragedy," said Tucker, a former police chief of Tallahassee, Fla., and Asheville, N.C.

Emerson College canceled classes Friday, held a counseling session and tentatively scheduled a memorial service next week for Snelgrove, whom friends and teachers described as a hardworking student who dreamed of becoming an entertainment reporter.

When journalism professor Bob Klinkscale read the news to his class Thursday, "It sounded like the air was sucked out of the room," he said.

Grief turned to anger at the offices of the Boston Herald, where readers called and e-mailed to complain about a graphic front-page photo of a bleeding Snelgrove lying on the ground. The newspaper issued an apology for that photo and a smaller one inside Thursday's editions.

Snelgrove's death was the second in Boston this year during rowdy celebrations of sports victories. Police were caught understaffed when riots broke out after the New England Patriots' Super Bowl win Feb. 1. One person was killed and another critically injured when a vehicle plowed into revelers.

In a Boston sports brawl last year, former New York Yankees players Jeff Nelson and Karim Garcia are scheduled to go on trial Tuesday on charges of assaulting a Fenway Park groundskeeper who cheered the Red Sox during the 2003 American League Championship Series. Prosecutors on Friday dropped charges against the groundskeeper, whom Nelson had accused of bumping him and spitting on him.

i posted this news earlier, commending the police dept. for its near instant acceptance of responsbility and promise to review tactics in the future. i don't think the police were out of control, i just they jumped the gun because they were overcompensating for the super bowl mess earlier this year. and also, the level of police incompetence in this case pales in comparision to truly "out of control" incompetent police actions in places like LA, NY, New Orleans and Miami.

My heart goes out to the girl's family for this terrible tragedy. It is still comforting and promising news out of Boston though when the police admit their mistake openly instead of trying to hide it or lie about it.

A PAINTBALL IS A ROUND, THIN SKINNED capsule with colored
liquid inside it. *Paintballs are similar to large round vitamin capsules or
bath oil beads. *The fill inside paintballs is non-toxic, non-caustic,
water-soluble and biodegradeable or made of naturally occurring
elements. *It rinses out of clothing and off skin with mild soap and water. *
The skin of a paintball is most often gelatin such as is used in making
vitamins and thousands of food products. *There are some paintballs with
a starch-like skin. *Certain specialty paintballs, not allowed in the game,
are restricted to police and military training, or theatrical special effects
uses.[/B]

paintballs are designed to be fired at under 300 feet per second, I know from playing close range games with high end gear that they can break the skin and leave serious bruises and welts. But there is no question that a hit in the eye would be catastrophic. No body who plays would ever consider playing or even watching without an approved face mask.

But again my earlier point : No body in their right mind, even sports fans from Boston, should be throwing full beers at horse mounted Police.

I wouldn't blame the cops either, but I don't understand the logic of a pepper-spray gun. Why not tear gas?

I went to Ohio University. Every Halloween there is a block party in the middle of town. Between 20,000 to 60,000 people show up. When the cops decide it's time to clear the streets they have rubber bullets for their shotguns that they fire at the ground right in front of the crowd. The bullets bounce and then hit the people in front. And they hurt, but the bounce dimishes their power quite a bit.

What's a pepper spray bead going to do? And based on what I know of pepper spray I would have to imagine they were aiming at people's heads. That's not right.

Sure the crowd's to blame, but so is the dumbass who thought equiping police officers with pepper spray guns was a good idea.

I wouldn't blame the cops either, but I don't understand the logic of a pepper-spray gun. Why not tear gas?

I went to Ohio University. Every Halloween there is a block party in the middle of town. Between 20,000 to 60,000 people show up. When the cops decide it's time to clear the streets they have rubber bullets for their shotguns that they fire at the ground right in front of the crowd. The bullets bounce and then hit the people in front. And they hurt, but the bounce dimishes their power quite a bit.

What's a pepper spray bead going to do? And based on what I know of pepper spray I would have to imagine they were aiming at people's heads. That's not right.

Sure the crowd's to blame, but so is the dumbass who thought equiping police officers with pepper spray guns was a good idea.

Click to expand...

that's an interesting point/fact i didn't know about.

i would almost agree there, and you can see the Boston PD instantly taking responsibility and attemping to fix things here. good on them.

Miss Snelgraves name isn't Linda. Don't know where that came from, my apologies.......

The idea of the CS/pepper paintball guns seemed like a better alternative to the smoke bomb style grenades the army uses. A cop can target an individual without contaminating a whole neighborhood.

But. Now there is a dead girl.

Another maybe minor point re: paintball.

Most paintball "guns" are designed to NOT look like firearms, bright colors, Top mounted "magazine" hoppers. Yet they have been very well designed for use under competitive stress. I have two tourny level guns that are very accurate, have a very high rate of fire, and do NOT look like lethal weapons. But the Boston cops apparently have something different.

My point is, when the rowdy crowd saw the Teargas markers come out, they most likey thought it was a firearm. ..." They can't shoot me, I am a college kid" if they were easily discernable from real guns they might have said " that's a teargas gun, they CAN shoot me. "

BOSTON (AP) -- Boston police are giving up the pepper-spray gun that killed a college student during a rowdy Red Sox celebration, switching to a weapon that fires the pellets at alower velocity .

IMO...This won't fix the problem.
The result will be, police will have to be much closer to the crowd in order to maintain accuracy. Thus compromising their safety.

My suggestion would be a larger pepper ball propelled at high velocity,
AIMED no higher than the waste.
The increased size of the pepper ball, coupled with the velocity, will easily
disperse the pepper in a broad and effective manner.

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